Sports

Lions to rotate QB duo, for now

When Lawrence High’s football team opens its season on Thursday at Olathe South, junior Nyle Anderson will start at quarterback. But Lions coach Dirk Wedd said Anderson won’t have an exclusive role.

Sophomore quarterback Alan Clothier remains a promising enough option that Wedd and his staff decided the younger QB will come in and relieve Anderson every three series or so.

“It’s not like Alan lost a starting position,” Wedd said. “I want to see both of them in a Friday-night setting.”

Anderson said both quarterbacks want to do what they can to get Lawrence a win.

“We work together at practice,” the junior said. “We’ll both work with both huddles (first string and second string) — it doesn’t really matter. We’ll just help each other out as much as possible.”

Both players, Anderson said, don’t mind going in and out of the game until someone emerges as a clear No. 1 for the team.

“It’s gonna be pretty nice to see how he does and how I do,” the starter said. “We’ll see who performs and how it all goes down.”

For now, Wedd won’t let one player’s hot streak keep the other quarterback on the bench.

“We could go down and score three times (with Anderson), and Alan is still gonna go in the fourth or fifth series, depending on the situation,” the coach said. “I want to see both of them under fire, and we’ll make a decision as we go.”

The LHS coaches decided to take senior Tucker Sutter out of the quarterback mix, and put him at receiver. Wedd said having Sutter line up as a pass-catching threat should make the receiving unit much better.

“For our offense to be effective,” he said, “our two inside receivers really have to be good players — both catching the football and blocking — similar to what (class of 2013 LHS graduates) Erick Mayo and Will Thompson did.”

Sutter and fellow senior Kieran Severa, Wedd added, are similar to last year’s duo as inside receivers.

Severa, one of Lawrence’s leaders on and off the field, said he likes the way both quarterbacks play the game, pointing to Anderson’s throwing and Clothier’s hard work. That opinion won’t change if one of them gets picked off or fumbles the ball, either.

“That’s just how football is,” Severa said of turnovers. “But I think both of them will recover and bounce back, and hopefully take us to a victory.”